A Book List

I’ve been asked to recommend a list of books. Tall order. This list could change next week or even later today. But these fifteen have had a lasting impression. Disclosure: I published three and two others are written by good friends.

The Adventures of Augie March (1953)/Saul Bellow

Herzog (1964)/Saul Bellow

Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968)/Joan Didion

I Shall Not Be Moved (1991)/Maya Angelou

Despair (1965, English translation)/Vladimir Nabokov

The Posthumous Man (2012)/Jake Hinkson

The Age of Reason/Thomas Paine (published in three parts: 1794, 1795, and 1807)

Monte Walsh (1963)/Jack Schaefer

Donnybrook (2013)/Frank Bill

American Gods (2001)/Neil Gaiman

The Little Boy Inside and Other Stories (2013)/Glenn Gray

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)/Patricia Highsmith

The Girls of Bunker Pines (2014) /Garnett Elliott

The Haunting of Hill House (1959)/Shirley Jackson

All Those Hungry Mouths (2015)/Keith Rawson

The Stranger

Back in high school did you have to read THE STRANGER by Camus? Over at Macmillan's Criminal Element I take a fresh look at this classic.

A Brazilian Kick

THE DOUBLE DEATH OF QUINCAS WATER-BRAY by Jorge Amado

A pithy (seventy-one pages) comedic story recounting the tale of Joaquim Soares da Cunha who abandons his respectable life to become Quincas Water-Bray, a “champion drunk” and leader of various bums, prostitutes, and other dubious people his prissy family view as lowlife. When he dies (with a content smile on his face) his family outfits him in respectable garb and prepares for his funeral. However, his drunken friends decide to swipe the body—after putting the deceased's more comfortable clothes back on—and gives him one last jaunt about town. A laugh out loud read especially toward the end when Quincas somehow gets into a bar fight and the best passages finds his loopy friends viewing him as very much alive conversing, drinking, and laughing with them.

Note: The original 1959 Brazilian title is THE TWO DEATHS OF QUINCAS WATERYELL.

Laughter in the Dark

“Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster.”

That succinct paragraph opens Laughter in the Dark before Vladimir Nabokov dutifully unfolds the spiraling downward fall of middle-aged art critic Albert Albinus and his gripping obsession with the 16-year-old Margot Peters. The novel was first published in Russian in 1932 under the far more captivating title Camera Obscura, and twenty-three years later Nabokov would tackle a similar theme of an older man with a young girl in the groundbreaking Lolita. But, whereas the famed nymphet of the 1950s gains a certain amount of pity for her situation, Margot comes across for what she is: a spoiled, conniving, and ultimately quite cruel femme fatale.

Read the rest of my article at Criminal Element.

Review: The Lizard’s Ardent Uniform & Other Stories

The seven tales presented are all good ones that push the boundaries in small and big ways. If you like considering the idea that there is far more going on than meets the eye this book is for you. A crime is present in many of the tales, but the tale itself might be fantasy, fiction or something else. The Lizard’s Ardent Uniform & Other Stories: Veridical Dreams Vol. 1. is one of those rare deals where each story is incredible good making the read simply fantastic from start to finish. --Kevin Tipple

Full review: The Lizard’s Ardent Uniform & Other Stories: Veridical Dreams Vol. 1. Edited by David Cranmer